Welcome to the new GovExec.com

Today we debut a freshly upgraded GovExec.com. Our incredibly talented team of developers and designers has worked very long hours for many months to put together a site that features many more photos and graphics, a more logical structure, and a much more exciting and dynamic home page. But the changes are more than a facelift. We’re adding key new elements to the user experience:

• We have a broader range of content, including not only our own breaking stories, but news and information from our technology-focused site, Nextgov.com, as well as our sister publications, The Atlantic and National Journal.  Breaking news articles and key features are now highlighted in the “skyboxes” at the top of the page.
• As major events develop, we will create special online reports by pulling together key news coverage and additional resources. 
• A new structure organizes our content into the following categories: Management, Oversight, Defense, Technology, Contracting, and Pay and Benefits. Each section has a drop-down menu at the top of the page highlighting the latest news and analysis.
• The site is more social and interactive, with new and easier ways for users to share our content on Twitter, Facebook and other networks.
• Voices, a section featured front and center on the home page, highlights our daily columns and blogs. Voices also have a home in the lower right column of every page on the site.

Several additional features will debut in the coming weeks, including:

• A video module highlighting both our popular “Play of the Day” feature and other videos.
• A special version of the site optimized for users of mobile devices.

Here’s what’s not changing: the elements of the site that our readers have grown to depend on, from our reporters’ and editors’ take on developing events in Fedblog to the advice in Tammy Flanagan’s Retirement Planning column to our Gimme My Discount feature in which feds can share tips on great deals being offered to government employees. We’ll also maintain popular features such as the Earlybird, which continuously updates headlines from key news sources.

One key part of how users experience the site will be changing: The way we handle comments. We still have a comments section at the bottom of all of the articles we publish, as we’ve had for years. But now we will use software called Disqus to manage the discussions. To comment, readers can use logins from Google, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo or OpenID -- or they can register with Disqus itself. The amount of information required to set up an account isn’t significantly more than we already had required to post comments.

With the new system, comments will be posted much more quickly than before. Unfortunately, we weren’t able technologically to bring over the comments from the old site, so when it comes to your feedback, it’s a brand new day, just as it is throughout GovExec.com.

If you wish, you can start using the comments function right on this page, to provide us your feedback on the new GovExec.com. As always, we thank you for your support of our efforts over the years.

Update, 2/1/12, 8:19 a.m.:  We're still working out a few kinks with the commenting system. So please bear with us as we deal with broken links in the "Most Commented" section and other issues. Thanks.

Update 10:11 a.m.: We've been experiencing server problems this morning, which explains why the site has been intermittently down. Please accept our apologies. We're working diligently on a permanent fix to the problem.